shall return below. The strophe says that the mill is in motion out on
the edge of the earth, that nine giant-maids turn it (for the lesser
Grotte-mill two were more than sufficient), that they had long ground
with it, that it belongs to a _skerry_ very dangerous to sea-faring men,
and that it produces a peculiar grist.
The same mill is suggested by an episode in Saxo, where he relates the
saga about the Danish prince, Amlethus, who on account of circumstances
in his home was compelled to pretend to be insane. Young courtiers, who
accompanied him on a walk along the sea-strand, showed him a sand-bank
and said that it was meal. The prince said he knew this to be so: he said
it was "meal from the mill of the storms" (_Hist. Dan._, 141).
The myth concerning the cosmic Grotte-mill was intimately connected
partly with the myth concerning the fate of Ymer and the other primeval
giants, and partly with that concerning Hvergelmer's fountain.
Vafthrudnersmal (21) and Grimnersmal (40) tell us that the earth was
made out of Ymer's flesh, the rocks out of his bones, and the sea from
his blood. With earth is here meant, as distinguished from rocks, the
mould, the sand, which cover the solid ground. Vafthrudnersmal calls
Ymer _Aurgelmir_, Claygelmer or Moldgelmer; and Fjölsvinnsmal gives him
the epithet _Leirbrimir_, Claybrimer, which suggests that his "flesh"
was changed into the loose earth, while his bones became rocks. Ymer's
descendants, the primeval giants, Thrudgelmer and Bergelmer perished with
him, and the "flesh" of their bodies cast into the primeval sea also
became mould. Of this we are assured, so far as Bergelmer is concerned,
by strophe 35 in Vafthrudnersmal, which also informs us that Bergelmer
was _laid under the mill-stone_. The mill which ground his "flesh" into
mould can be none other than the one grinding under the sea, that is, the
cosmic Grotte-mill.
When Odin asks the wise giant Vafthrudner how far back he can remember,
and which is the oldest event of which he has any knowledge from personal
experience, the giant answers: "Countless ages ere the earth was shapen
Bergelmer was born. The first thing I remember is when he _á var lúdr um
lagidr_."
This expression was misunderstood by the author of Gylfaginning himself,
and the misunderstanding has continued to develop into the theory that
Bergelmer was changed into a sort of Noah, who with his household saved
himself in an ark when Bur's sons drowned the primeval giants in the
blood of their progenitor. Of such a counterpart to the Biblical account
of Noah and his ark our Teutonic mythical fragments have no knowledge
whatever.
The word _lúdr_ (with radical _r_) has two meanings: (1) a
wind-instrument, a loor, a war-trumpet; (2) the tier of beams, the
underlying timbers of a mill, and, in a wider sense, the mill itself.
The first meaning, that of war-trumpet, is not found in the songs of the
Elder Edda, and upon the whole does not occur in the Old Norse poetry.
Heimdal's war-trumpet is not called _lúdr_, but _horn_ or _hljód_. _Lúdr_
in this sense makes its first appearance in the sagas of Christian times,
but is never used by the skalds. In spite of this fact the signification
may date back to heathen times. But however this may be, _lúdr_ in
Vafthrudnersmal does not mean a war-trumpet. The poem can never have
meant that Bergelmer was laid on a musical instrument.
The other meaning remains to be discussed. _Lúdr_, partly in its more
limited sense of the timbers or beams under the mill, partly in the sense
of the subterranean mill in its entirety, and the place where it is
found, occurs several times in the poems: in the Grotte-song, in Helge
Hund. (ii. 2), and in the above-quoted strophe by Snæbjorn, and also in
Grogalder and in Fjölsvinnsmal. If this signification is applied to the
passage in Vafthrudnersmal: _á var lúdr um lagidr_, we get the meaning
that Bergelmer was "laid on a mill," and in fact no other meaning of
the passage is possible, unless an entirely new signification is to be
arbitrarily invented.
But however conspicuous this signification is, and however clear it
is that it is the only one applicable in this poem, still it has been
overlooked or thrust aside by the mythologists, and for this Gylfaginning
is to blame. So far as I know, Vigfusson is the only one who (in his
Dictionary, p. 399) makes the passage _á lúdr lagidr_ mean what it
actually means, and he remarks that the words must "refer to some ancient
lost myth."
The confusion begins, as stated, in Gylfaginning. Its author has had no
other authority for his statement than the Vafthrudnersmal strophe in
question, which he also cites to corroborate his own words; and we have
here one of the many examples found in Gylfaginning showing that its
author has neglected to pay much attention to what the passages quoted
contain. When Gylfaginning has stated that the frost-giants were drowned
in Ymer's blood, then comes its interpretation of the Vafthrudnersmal
strophe, which is as follows: "One escaped with his household: him the
giants call Bergelmer. He with his wife betook himself upon his _lúdr_
and remained there, and from them the races of giants are descended"
(_nema einn komst undan med sinu hyski: thann kalla jötnar Bergelmi;
hann fór upp á lúdr sinn ok kona hans, ok helzt thar, ok eru af theim
komnar_), &c.
What Gylfaginning's author has conceived by the _lúdr_ which he mentions
it is difficult to say. That he did not have a boat in mind is in the
meantime evident from the expression: _hann fór upp á lúdr sinn_. It is
more reasonable to suppose that his idea was, that Bergelmer himself
owned an immense mill, upon whose high timbers he and his household
climbed to save themselves from the flood. That the original text says
that Bergelmer was _laid_ on the timbers of the mill Gylfaginning pays
no attention to. To go upon something and to be laid on something are,
however, very different notions.
An argument in favour of the wrong interpretation was furnished by the
Resenian edition of the Younger Edda (Copenhagen, 1665). There we find
the expression _fór upp á lúdr sinn_ "amended" to _fór á bát sinn_. Thus
Bergelmer had secured a boat to sail in; and although more reliable
editions of the Younger Edda have been published since from which the
boat disappeared, still the mythologists have not had the heart to take
the boat away from Bergelmer. On the contrary, they have allowed the boat
to grow into a ship, an ark.
As already pointed out, Vafthrudnersmal tells us expressly that
Bergelmer, Aurgelmer's grandson, was "laid on a mill" or "on the
supporting timbers of a mill." We may be sure that the myth would not
have laid Bergelmer on "a mill" if the intention was not that he was to
be ground. The kind of meal thus produced has already been explained. It
is the mould and sand which the sea since time's earliest dawn has cast
upon the shores of Midgard, and with which the bays and strands have
been filled, to become sooner or later green fields. From Ymer's flesh
the gods created the oldest layer of soil, that which covered the earth
the first time the sun shone thereon, and in which the first herbs grew.
Ever since the same activity which then took place still continues. After
the great mill of the gods transformed the oldest frost-giant into the
dust of earth, it has continued to grind the bodies of his descendants
between the same stones into the same kind of mould. This is the meaning
of Vafthrudner's words when he says that his memory reaches back to the
time when Bergelmer was laid on the mill to be ground. Ymer he does not
remember, nor Thrudgelmer, nor the days when these were changed to earth.
Of them he knows only by hearsay. But he remembers when the turn came for
Bergelmer's limbs to be subjected to the same fate.
"The glorious Midgard" could not be created before its foundations raised
by the gods out of the sea were changed to _bjód_ (Völuspa). This is
the word (originally _bjódr_) with which the author of Völuspa chose to
express the quality of the fields and the fields themselves, which were
raised out of the sea by Bor's sons, when the great mill had changed the
"flesh" of Ymer into mould. Bjód does not mean a bare field or ground,
but one that can supply food. Thus it is used in Haustlaung (_af breidu
bjódi_, the place for a spread feast--Skaldskaparmal, ch. 22), and its
other meanings (perhaps the more original ones) are that of a board and
of a table for food to lie on. When the fields were raised out of Ymer's
blood they were covered with mould, so that, when they got light and
warmth from the sun, then the _grund_ became _gróin grænum lauki_. The
very word _mould_ comes from the Teutonic word _mala_, to grind (cp. Eng.
_meal_, Latin _molere_). The development of language and the development
of mythology have here, as in so many other instances, gone hand in hand.
That the "flesh" of the primeval giants could be ground into fertile
mould refers us to the primeval cow Audhumbla by whose milk Ymer was
nourished and his flesh formed (Gylfaginning). Thus the cow in the
Teutonic mythology is the same as she is in the Iranian, the primeval
source of fertility. The mould, out of which the harvests grow, has by
transformations developed out of her nourishing liquids.
Here, then, we have the explanation of the _lidmeldr_ which the great
mill grinds, according to Snæbjorn. _Lidmeldr_ means limb-grist. It is
the limbs and joints of the primeval giants, which on Amlode's mill are
transformed into meal.
In its character as an institution for the promotion of fertility, and
for rendering the fields fit for habitation, the mill is under the care
and protection of the Vans. After Njord's son, Frey, had been fostered
in Asgard and had acquired the dignity of lord of the harvests, he was
the one who became the master of the great Grotte. It is attended on his
behalf by one of his servants, who in the mythology is called _Byggvir_,
a name related both to _byggja_, settle, cultivate, and to _bygg_,
barley, a kind of grain, and by his kinswoman and helpmate Beyla. So
important is the calling of Bygver and Beyla that they are permitted to
attend the feasts of the gods with their master (Frey). Consequently they
are present at the banquet to which Ægir, according to Lokasenna, invited
the gods. When Loke uninvited made his appearance there to mix harm in
the mead of the gods, and to embitter their pleasure, and when he there
taunts Frey, Bygver becomes wroth on his master's behalf and says:
Str. 43.
Veiztu, ef ec öthli ettac Had I the ancestry
sem Ingunar-Freyr of Ingunar Frey
oc sva sælict setr, and so honoured a seat,
mergi smæra maul tha ec know I would grind you
thá meincráco finer than marrow, you evil crow,
oc lemtha alla i litho. and crush you limb by limb.
Loke answers:
Str. 44.
Hvat er that ith litla What little boy is that
er ec that lauggra sec whom I see wag his tail
oc snapvist snapir; and eat like a parasite?
att eyrom Freys Near Frey's ears
mundu æ vera always you are
oc und kvernom klaka. and clatter 'neath the mill-stone.
Bygver.
Str. 45.
Beyggvir ec heiti, Bygver is my name,
enn mic brathan kveda All gods and men
god aull oc gumar: call me the nimble,
thvi em ec her hrodugr, and here it is my pride,
at drecca Hroptz megir that Odin's sons each
allir aul saman. and all drink ale.
Loke.
Str. 46.
thegi thu, Beyggvir! Be silent, Bygver!
thu kunnir aldregi Ne'er were you able
deila meth mönnom mat. food to divide among men.
Beyla, too, gets her share of Loke's abuse. The least disgraceful thing
he says of her is that she is a _deigia_ (a slave, who has to work at
the mill and in the kitchen), and that she is covered with traces of her
occupation in dust and dirt.
As we see, Loke characterises Bygver as a servant taking charge of the
mill under Frey, and Bygver characterises himself as one who grinds, and
is able to crush an "evil crow" limb by limb with his mill-stones. As
the one who with his mill makes vegetation, and so also bread and malt,
possible, he boasts of it as his honour that the gods are able to drink
ale at a banquet. Loke blames him because he is not able to divide the
food among men. The reproach implies that the distribution of food is
in his hands. The mould which comes from the great mill gives different
degrees of fertility to different fields, and rewards abundantly or
niggardly the toil of the farmer. Loke doubtless alludes to this unequal
distribution, else it would be impossible to find any sense in his words.
In the poetic Edda we still have another reminiscence of the great mill
which is located under the sea, and at the same time in the lower world
(see below), and which "grinds mould into food." It is in a poem, whose
skald says that he has seen it on his journey in the lower world. In his
description of the "home of torture" in Hades, Solarljod's Christian
author has taken all his materials from the heathen mythological
conceptions of the worlds of punishment, though the author treats these
materials in accordance with the Christian purpose of his song. When
the skald dies, he enters the Hades gates, crosses bloody streams, sits
for nine days _á norna stóli_, is thereupon seated on a horse, and is
permitted to make a journey through Mimer's domain, first to the regions
of the happy and then to those of the damned. In Mimer's realm he sees
the "stag of the sun" and Nide's (Mimer's) sons, who "quaff the pure
mead from Baugregin's well." When he approached the borders of the world
of the damned, he heard a terrible din, which silenced the winds and
stopped the flow of the waters. The mighty din came from a mill. Its
stones were wet with blood, but the grist produced was mould, which was
to be food. Fickle-wise (_svipvisar_, heathen) women of dark complexion
turned the mill. Their bloody and tortured hearts hung outside of their
breasts. The mould which they ground was to feed their husbands.
This mill, situated at the entrance of hell, is here represented as one
of the agents of torture in the lower world. To a certain extent this is
correct even from a heathen standpoint. It was the lot of slave-women to
turn the hand-mill. In the heroic poem the giant-maids Fenja and Menja,
taken prisoners and made slaves, have to turn Frode's Grotte. In the
mythology "Eylud's nine women," thurse-maids, were compelled to keep
this vast mechanism in motion, and that this was regarded as a heavy and
compulsory task may be assumed without the risk of being mistaken.
According to Solarljod, the mill-stones are stained with blood. In the
mythology they crush the bodies of the first giants and revolve in
Ymer's blood. It is also in perfect harmony with the mythology that the
meal becomes mould, and that the mould serves as food. But the cosmic
signification is obliterated in Solarljod, and it seems to be the
author's idea that men who have died in their heathen belief are to eat
the mould which women who have died in heathendom industriously grind as
food for them.
The myth about the greater Grotte, as already indicated, has also been
connected with the Hvergelmer myth. Solarljod has correctly stated the
location of the mill on the border of the realm of torture. The mythology
has located Hvergelmer's fountain there (see No. 59); and as this vast
fountain is the mother of the ocean and of all waters, and the ever open
connection between the waters of heaven, of the earth, and of the lower
world, then this furnishes the explanation of the apparently conflicting
statements, that the mill is situated both in the lower world and at the
same time on the bottom of the sea. Of the mill it is said that it is
dangerous to men, dangerous to fleets and to crews, and that it causes
the maelstrom (_svelgr_) when the water of the ocean rushes down through
the eye of the mill-stone. The same was said of Hvergelmer, that causes
ebb and flood and maelstrom, when the water of the world alternately
flows into and out of this great source. To judge from all this, the mill
has been conceived as so made that its foundation timbers stood on solid
ground in the lower world, and thence rose up into the sea, in which the
stones resting on this substructure were located. The revolving "eye" of
the mill-stone was directly above Hvergelmer, and served as the channel
through which the water flowed to and from the great fountain of the
world's waters.
81.
THE WORLD-MILL (_continued_). THE WORLD-MILL MAKES THE
CONSTELLATIONS REVOLVE. MUNDILFÖRI.
But the colossal mill in the ocean has also served other purposes than
that of grinding the nourishing mould from the limbs of the primeval
giants.
The Teutons, like all people of antiquity, and like most men of the
present time, regarded the earth as stationary. And so, too, the lower
world (_jormurgrundr_--Forspjallsljod) on which the foundations of the
earth rested. Stationary was also that heaven in which the Asas had their
citadels, surrounded by a common wall, for the Asgard-bridge, Bifrost,
had a solid bridge-head on the southern and another on the northern
edge of the lower world, and could not change position in its relation
to them. All this part of creation was held together by the immovable
roots of the world-tree, or rested on its invisible branches. Sol and
Mane had their fixed paths, the points of departure and arrival of which
were the "horse-doors" (_jódyrr_), which were hung on the eastern and
western mountain-walls of the lower world. The god Mane and the goddess
Sol were thought to traverse these paths in shining chariots, and their
daily journeys across the heavens did not to our ancestors imply that
any part of the world-structure itself was in motion. Mane's course lay
below Asgard. When Thor in his thunder-chariot descends to Jotunheim
the path of Mane thunders under him (_en dundi Mána vegr und Meila
bródur_--Haustl., 1). No definite statement in our mythical records
informs us whether the way of the sun was over or under Asgard.
But high above Asgard is the starry vault of heaven, and to the Teutons
as well as to other people that sky was not only an optical but a real
vault, which daily revolved around a stationary point. Sol and Mane
might be conceived as traversing their appointed courses independently,
and not as coming in contact with vaults, which by their motions from
east to west produced the progress of sun and moon. The very circumstance
that they continually changed position in their relation to each other
and to the stars seemed to prove that they proceeded independently in
their own courses. With the countless stars the case was different. They
always keep at the same distance and always present the same figures on
the canopy of the nocturnal heavens. They looked like glistening heads of
nails driven into a movable ceiling. Hence the starlit sky was thought
to be in motion. The sailors and shepherds of the Teutons very well knew
that this revolving was round a fixed point, the polar star, and it is
probable that _veraldar nagli_, the world-nail, the world-spike, an
expression preserved in Eddubrott, ii., designates the north star.
Thus the starry sky was the movable part of the universe. And this motion
is not of the same kind as that of the winds, whose coming and direction
no man can predict or calculate. The motion of the starry firmament is
defined, always the same, always in the same direction, and keeps equal
step with the march of time itself. It does not, therefore, depend on the
accidental pleasure of gods or other powers. On the other hand, it seems
to be caused by a mechanism operating evenly and regularly.
The mill was for a long time the only kind of mechanism on a large
scale known to the Teutons. Its motion was a rotating one. The movable
mill-stone was turned by a handle or sweep which was called _möndull_.
The mill-stones and the _möndull_ might be conceived as large as you
please. Fancy knew no other limits than those of the universe.
There was another natural phenomenon, which also was regular, and which
was well known to the seamen of the North and to those Teutons who lived
on the shores of the North Sea, namely, the rising and falling of the
tide. Did one and the same force produce both these great phenomena? Did
the same cause produce the motion of the starry vault and the ebb and
flood of the sea? In regard to the latter phenomenon, we already know
the naïve explanation given in the myth concerning Hvergelmer and the
Grotte-mill. And the same explanation sufficed for the former. There was
no need of another mechanism to make the heavens revolve, as there was
already one at hand, the influence of which could be traced throughout
that ocean in which Midgard was simply an isle, and which around this
island extends its surface even to the brink of heaven (Gylfaginning).
The mythology knew a person by name _Mundilföri_ (Vafthr., 23; Gylfag.).
The word _mundill_ is related to _möndull_, and is presumably only
another form of the same word. The name or epithet Mundilfore refers to
a being that has had something to do with a great mythical _möndull_
and with the movements of the mechanism which this _möndull_ kept in
motion. Now the word _möndull_ is never used in the old Norse literature
about any other object than the sweep or handle with which the movable
mill-stone is turned. (In this sense the word occurs in the Grotte-song
and in Helge Hund. ii., 3, 4). Thus Mundilfore has had some part to play
in regard to the great giant-mill of the ocean and of the lower world.
Of Mundilfore we learn, on the other hand, that he is the father of the
personal Sol and the personal Mane (Valfthr. 23). This, again, shows that
the mythology conceived him as intimately associated with the heavens
and with the heavenly bodies. Vigfusson (Dict., 437) has, therefore,
with good reason remarked that _mundill_ in Mundilfore refers to _the
veering round or the revolution of the heavens_. As the father of Sol
and Mane, Mundilfore was a being of divine rank, and as such belonged
to the powers of the lower world, where Sol and Mane have their abodes
and resting-places. The latter part of the name, _föri_, refers to the
verb _fœra_, to conduct, to move. Thus he is that power who has to take
charge of the revolutions of the starry vault of heaven, and these must
be produced by the great _möndull_, the mill-handle or mill-sweep, since
he is called _Mundilföri_.
The regular motion of the starry firmament and of the sea is,
accordingly, produced by the same vast mechanism, the Grotte-mill,
the _meginverk_ of the heathen fancy (Grotte-song, 11; cp. Egil
Skallagrimson's way of using the word, Arnibj.-Drapa, 26). The handle
extends to the edge of the world, and the nine giantesses, who are
compelled to turn the mill, pushing the sweep before them, march along
the outer edge of the universe. Thus we get an intelligible idea of what
Snæbjorn means when he says that Eylud's nine women turn the Grotte
"along the edge of the earth" (_hræra Grotta at fyrir jardar skauti_).
Mundilfore and Bygver thus each has his task to perform in connection
with the same vast machinery. The one attends to the regular motion of
the _möndull_, the other looks after the mill-stones and the grist.
In the name Eylud the first part is _ey_, and the second part is _ludr_.
The name means the "island-mill." Eylud's nine women are the "nine women
of the island-mill." The mill is in the same strophe called _skerja
Grotti_, the Grotte of the skerry. These expressions refer to each other
and designate with different words the same idea--the mill that grinds
islands and skerries.